Tropical Storm Erin became the first Atlantic hurricane of the year Friday and could reach major status by Sunday. Forecasts say tropical storm-force winds may affect the Northern Leeward Islands, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this weekend, though most models show the storm curving east of the U.S. Erin is the fifth named storm of an expectedly active season with six to 10 hurricanes forecast, up to half of them major.
Experts from Rice University are available for media interviews on hurricane- and storm-related topics.
Flooding and hurricane risk
Philip Bedient
Herman and George R. Brown Professor of Engineering and director of Rice’s Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center
Bedient is an expert on flooding driven by tropical depressions, hurricanes and severe storms. He can discuss the effects of urban development practices and protection strategies for the region. Bedient was Rice’s most-cited expert during Hurricane Harvey.
Jim Blackburn
Professor in the practice of environmental law, co-director of the SSPEED Center and faculty scholar at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy
Blackburn focuses on the rapid intensification of hurricanes. He can explain how global warming is increasing storm and flood risks and can discuss sustainable hurricane protection strategies involving dikes, levees, gates, nature-based solutions and carbon credits. He can also address equity in flood protection across the Houston region.
Avantika Gori
Assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering
Gori is an expert on current and long-term trends in hurricane activity and the hazards they pose as well as how climate change and urban development are driving increased risk in coastal cities. Her research explores hurricane climatology and related hazards, including extreme winds, storm surge, heavy rainfall and coastal flooding. Gori combines physical modeling with statistical methods to better characterize hurricane risk under changing climate and environmental conditions.
James Doss-Gollin
Assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering
Doss-Gollin’s work focuses on extreme rainfall, urban flooding and energy system resilience. He combines physical and statistical methods to understand and manage climate risks. He leads the Advancing AI for Climate Risk and Resilience cluster at Rice and is a member of the SSPEED Center.
Policy, community resilience and disaster recovery
Ed Emmett
Fellow in energy and transportation policy at the Baker Institute
Emmett can speak on building community resilience to natural and man-made disasters. He served as Harris County judge and the county’s director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management during Hurricane Harvey. As the chief executive of Houston’s Harris County, Emmett was one of the most prominent officials guiding the community through the most significant disaster in the city’s history.
Mark Jones
Professor of political science and fellow at the Baker Institute
Jones can speak on government responses to storms, political dynamics and public opinion on hurricane and flood-related policies.
Jim Elliott
David W. Leebron Professor of Sociology and co-director of Rice’s Center for Coastal Futures and Adaptive Resilience (CFAR)
Elliott is an expert in social inequities, disaster impacts and recovery. His research on wealth inequities stemming from local disasters has informed legislative initiatives in the U.S. Congress and reports from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Advisory Council. His research investigates toxic exposures from flooding and hurricanes and managed retreat as a form of climate adaptation, often after major hurricanes.
Maggie Tsang
Assistant professor of architecture
Tsang can speak to the posthurricane challenges cities face related to the built and natural environments. She has expertise in landscape, ecology, urbanism and infrastructure, and she co-founded Dept., a landscape architecture and urban design studio based in Houston.
Climate mitigation and adaptation
Sylvia Dee
Associate professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences and civil and environmental engineering
Dee is a climate scientist whose research explores how natural climate patterns such as El Niño and La Niña interact with climate change to influence weather extremes and flood risk. Her lab uses climate models to assess future hazards to human and natural systems with a focus on the Gulf of Mexico. She is collaborating with a team of scientists at Baylor College of Medicine on a groundbreaking initiative called the Texas Virosphere Project, which seeks to predict and prevent climate-driven infectious disease outbreaks in Texas and the Gulf Coast.
Dominic Boyer
Professor of anthropology and co-director of CFAR
Boyer studies climate mitigation and adaptation. After Hurricane Harvey, he led a National Science Foundation-funded project that examined the emotional and social toll of repeated flooding on Houston residents’ decisions to stay or leave the city. He now investigates how green stormwater infrastructure could support climate resilience in underserved neighborhoods of northeast Houston.
Anna Rhodes
Assistant professor of sociology
Rhodes studies how disasters and climate change influence household decisions and increase economic inequality. She co-authored the book “Soaking the Middle Class” and co-wrote a New York Times op-ed about Hurricane Harvey’s impact five years after it hit Houston.
To schedule an interview with Rice’s experts, contact media relations specialists Alex Becker at alex.becker@rice.edu, Kat Cosley Trigg at Kat.Cosley.Trigg@rice.edu or Marcy de Luna at marcy.deluna@rice.edu.
You can find all of Rice’s expert alerts online.